When electronic components with wire leads, such as resistors, capacitors, diodes and transistors, are mounted on a printed circuit board (PCB), it is frequently necessary or desirable to bend the leads to enable a desired orientation of the component body or its leads relative to the PCB holes which receive the leads for soldering to the circuit pattern. It is also desirable or necessary to crimp the leads at desired locations, the crimp forming a sharp bend in the lead that will not pass through the PCB hole, thus positioning the component at the desired height over the PCB surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,142,484 describes a hand tool for making right angle bends in the axial leads of an electronic component. However, this patent does not describe how to make vertical bends or other desired configurations which would allow optimum orientation of the component on the PCB. Moreover, this patent does not describe how to crimp component leads. Hand tools are commercially available for forming crimps in component leads. Such tools, which are in the plier class, provide for split blades on one jaw, and a single blade on the opposing jaw, positioned to fit between the split blades. The wire lead is placed across the split blades and is crimped when the single blade is brought down as the pliers are closed. A U-shaped crimp results, whose width is fixed by the non-adjustable split blade spacing, and whose depth is controlled by the user pressure. This tool cannot be used for lead bending as described in the aforementioned patent.
The chief object of the invention is a novel hand tool capable of bending component leads in a plurality of directions and at different locations along the wire leads to form a plurality of lead configurations for desired mounting on a PCB, and is also capable of forming crimps in the wire leads at desired locations along the straight or bent wire leads.
Another object of the invention is a novel wire bending and crimping tool which is compact, capable of low cost manufacture, easy to use, and very versatile.
These and further objects and advantages of the invention as will appear hereinafter are achieved with a novel hand tool comprising a handle portion having a generally triangular shaped body portion forming a narrow end and a wide end. The body portion has raised edges or lands on one or both sides, with plural parallel aligned grooves for receiving the axial leads of a component positioned between the aligned grooves whose spacing from the body portion's side surfaces determines the locations for forming right angle or transverse bends in the leads. Mounted on the handle portion's wide end is lead crimping apparatus comprising a slot for receiving the lead to be crimped, means forming a user adjustable gap located below the slot for receiving the wire crimp and determining the crimp width, and means located above the slot for moving a crimping blade against the lead when in the slot and forcing it into the crimping gap a preselected depth. As a further feature, the crimping tool support is shaped at a corner adjacent a lead-receiving hole for vertical or reverse bending of a component lead when inserted in the hole.
Other features and advantages of the invention will be described hereinafter in connection with the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment of the tool of the invention, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.